They saw one man attempt to flee through the rear of the building when they entered the premises and after questioning discovered that he was a 20-year-old failed asylum seeker from Afghanistan.

Two further workers at the restaurant were discovered to be employed without the correct UK immigration documentation and were arrested by the officials.

The group are now being held in the UK immigration detention centre while steps are taken to remove them from the country.

Meanwhile, the takeaway could be fined up to £30,000 if it is shown that the employers failed to conduct the correct right-to-work checks on the three men before hiring them. These checks are simple procedures, such as asking to see a passport of a UK work permit, but failure to carry them out is taken very seriously by the authorities.

Karyn Dunning, head of Kent local immigration team at the UKBA, commented: “It is the legal responsibility of all employers to check that staff have the right to work in the UK. There are simple ways of checking a foreign national's right to work and there are no excuses for failing to do so.”